The present invention relates to the art of safety devices and; in particular, to a device for removing a safety catch from or setting it into a safety apparatus guide rail.
An exit device is known from German Utility Model No. 88 11 779, in which a lateral cheek, (i.e. side portion) of a C-profile, (i.e. a section having a C-shaped cross-section) of the guide rail is cut out over a length. The length is somewhat greater than the length of the carriage, and replaced by a pivotable flap. In the closed position of the flap, the carriage is also guided within the cut-out portion of the cheek. In the open position of the flap, guiding of the carriage within the cut-out portion is interrupted, and at this location the carriage can be set into the guide rail or be removed from it. In order to avoid accidents, it is necessary to make sure that the flap is in the closed position after the removal or setting in of a carriage. Otherwise, the carriage of a user next in line could drop unintentionally out of the guide rail.
Furthermore, switch points in the form of rotatable discs are known in the case of climbing guards, which make it possible to change the direction of movement, for instance, from the vertical to the horizontal or at an angle to the vertical. The rotatable disc includes a short piece of the guide rail, which is rotatable about an axis of rotation passing through the center of the piece of guide rail and extending from the front to the back. When the branching guide rail is omitted, such a rotatable disc may also be utilized for removing and setting in the carriage. There always exists the danger in that regard, however, that the carriage will fall to the side out of the guide rail by spontaneous turning of the rotatable disc.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to eliminate accidental dropping of the carriage out of the guide rail.